m(I added some useful tricks to personalize MATE to your needs. Why: Because I had to search for quite a long time to find the true, correct, currently working answer and I think it should be included in the wiki.)

Revision as of 14:36, 4 January 2014

The MATE Desktop Environment is a fork of GNOME 2. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. MATE is under active development to add support for new technologies while preserving a traditional desktop experience.

Once the repository has been added you can install the core MATE components by installing the mate group.

You can also install the mate-extra group which contains various GNOME 2 utilities which have been renamed to avoid conflicting with their GNOME 3 counterparts such as mate-file-archiverAUR (Known in MATE as Engrampa) which is the MATE version of file-roller.

Tip: The mate-netbook package provides a MATE panel applet that might be useful to owners of small screen devices, such as a Netbook. The applet will automatically maximise all windows and provides an application switcher applet. It is not part of the mate or mate-extra groups but can be installed seperately if desired.

Starting

Graphical log-in

GDM-old

If you are using gdm-oldAUR from the AUR, simply select the MATE session from the Sessions list. For your first time launching MATE, make sure to click "Just this session" when prompted.

KDM

In order to be able to launch MATE from KDM, the KDE Display Manager, you have to edit the KDM configuration.
As root, edit the /usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc configuration file. Find the SessionsDir parameter and add /usr/share/xsessions to the list.
It should then look like this:

Manually

GNOME 2 Applications

MATE is largely composed of GNOME 2 applications and utilities, renamed to avoid conflicting with GNOME 3. Below is a list of common GNOME applications which have been renamed in MATE.

Alacarte is renamed Mozo.

Nautilus is renamed Caja.

Metacity is renamed Marco.

Gedit is renamed Pluma.

Eye of GNOME is renamed Eye of MATE.

Evince is renamed Atril.

File Roller is renamed Engrampa.

GNOME Terminal is renamed MATE Terminal.

Other applications and core components prefixed with GNOME (such as GNOME Panel, GNOME Menus etc) have had the prefix changed to MATE so they become MATE Panel, MATE Menus etc.

Network Management

It is recommended that you use Network Manager for managing networks in MATE. Please see the wiki page for more details on installing and configuring it.

Tips & Tricks

Upgrading from 1.4 to 1.6

MATE 1.6 migrated from gconf to gsettings. If you are updating from an MATE 1.4 you might end up with an empty panel. To resolve the issue reset the panel configuration to its defaults using

# mate-panel --reset

Then use...

# mate-conf-import

...to restore most of your old settings. After upgrading from MATE 1.4 to MATE 1.6 you should remove the some of the old MATE 1.4 libraries that are not required by MATE 1.6, this can also improve the start-up time of MATE. NOTE! It is your responsibility to ensure that packages are not removed that might be required elsewhere.

Consistent cursor theme

To ensure a consistent cursor theme edit ~/.icons/default/index.theme to include:

[Icon Theme]
Inherits=mate

Where does the name come from?

The name "MATE", pronounced Ma-Tay, comes from yerba maté, a species of holly native to subtropical South America. Its leaves contain caffeine and are used to make infusions and a beverage called mate.